The actor Arnold Johnson, who has died aged 79, starred in the 1969 film Putney Swope. In an era when Sidney Poitier was playing a Nobel-prize-winning black Prince Charming in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967), Putney Swope, a movie which came out of the New York underground, provided an alternative.
Written and directed by the white movie-maker Robert Downey, it told the story of an inspired takeover of a Madison Avenue advertising agency. Johnson portrayed the abrasive, arrogant Putney, accidentally elected chairman of the board. "I'm not going to rock the boat," Putney announces. "I'm going to sink it!"
Most of the white staff are replaced by armed black militants complete with afros. By the end of the film, Putney and company have sunk the boat, and revealed that some African-Americans can be just as corrupt and power-hungry as whites.
Putney Swope reversed the dominant Hollywood image of blacks. It featured a wealthy black couple who employ a lazy white maid and a black employer who turns down white job applications. In Black Hollywood (1975), African-American historian Gary Null observed that "Downey dared to treat blacks as full-fledged human beings".
Brooklyn-born, orphaned at the age of four, Johnson read drama at New York University and began his career in off-Broadway productions. He was still working in New York when he was cast as Swope. After that film Johnson went to Hollywood to play a supporting role in Shaft, the 1971 box office smash starring Richard Roundtree that helped launch the blaxploitation vogue.
His other films included Pipe Dreams (1976) - which starred singer Gladys Knight - A Hero Ain't Nothin' But A Sandwich (1977), John Schlesinger's Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), Weeds (1987), Sunset (1988), Robert Townsend's The Five Heartbeats (1991) and Menace II Society (1993).
On television, Johnson played a continuing role in the 1973-77 NBC television sitcom Sanford and Son, inspired by the BBC's Steptoe and Son. His other TV work included Family Matters, Homefront, Buddies, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Jeffersons, Highway to Heaven, Amazing Stories and Matlock.
Johnson is survived by his wife, Betty Heater Johnson, three children from a previous marriage and three stepchildren.
• Arnold Johnson, actor, born 1921; died April 10 2000
